"Movie-watching you say?!" Oh, you bet! Got home and got another load of stuff going in the washing machine, got a call from Reba saying she was halfway through with shopping, fed ourselves some victuals from a well-known purveyor of clown- and arch-themed "food," set about to get the kids cleaned up, and then sat down to fold clothes and watch my copy of McLintock!

Movie Review Time!

Okay, obviously the only reason I would watch this is because it has the luminous Maureen O'Hara in it. The problem was that the DVD I have is the horrid and roundly excoriated Good Times Home Video version that looks like it was transferred to digital by a dead raccoon. It made enjoyment difficult. BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. The other problem is that aside from the scenery (that also includes a raven-haired young Stefanie Powers as Becky, and an incredibly handsome Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs. Warren) the movie itself is such a mishmash of events. Too many stories to try to tell, too much explained by nothing more than a "yup" or a nod. A big cast of folks trying to get on camera (Chill Wills, Pat Wayne, Jerry Van Dyke, Strother Martin, Big John Hamilton, and then a whole passel of actual Indians), a storyline that you realize is actually very thin once you reach the final scene, all mixed in with the whole schmear of Western cliches--sodbusters versus cattlemen, college-educated dudes versus 6th grade grajiates, townfolk versus ranchers, blonde versus brunette versus redhead, everyone against the Comanche, everyone against the Injun agent, the closing of the range, the end of the frontier, greedy skalawags, drunken fistfights, sober fistfights, a town drunk who ride a burro--just too much going on.

Why watch? Well, you get to hear John Wayne say "pilgrim," and you get to see Maureen O'Hara chased through town in her unmentionables, including a dunk in a horse trough, and a sound spanking after all that.

Isn't that enough?! Of course it is.

But get a better copy of the movie first.

The kids watched some of it with me, but were more content to be playing upstairs rather than be nearby where I was folding clothes, I'm sure because they were certain they would get dragooned into that as well. Off to bed with them (it being now 8:00 p.m.) and not long afterwards, Mom and the older two came in burdened with their haul for the day.

We stayed up a while longer, but along about 11 I couldn't stand it anymore and had to collapse on the bed, even though the girls were still up getting their hair dried and getting ready for bed. The last thought I had before drifting off is that I sure hoped they turned the lights out before they went to bed themselves.

And they did!

NEXT: The Remainder of the Weekend!
posted by Terry at 1:49:00 PM